


What could have been and what is

by evertere



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Episode: s02e06 Futamono, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 19:33:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2037273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evertere/pseuds/evertere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The murder of "futamono" from a tired Jack's perspective. Why can't he just have a regular homicide just once?</p>
            </blockquote>





	What could have been and what is

Jack stood in the empty parking lot. Well, nearly empty. What occupied some space was a thing not belonging there. Actually, it didn’t belong anywhere. The tree, which was an ordinary thing in its own, stood rigid, its roots occupying the place where now broken asphalt once where. The setting made the ordinary thing abnormal. Though that was not his first thought when seeing the seen, but rather in lines of:  _How the hell did he manage to plant the tree?_  It must have looked conspicuous no matter how it was done, how come no one noticed it? He probably used some kind of machine; even with a team it would have been impossible to execute. The second thought came naturally after the first, though less articulated and more like a feeling.  _The trunk didn’t fit in._ Which was an understatement. Where the tree trunk once was now were a man, he, like the trunk he was carved into, hollow. In his chest an array of flowers blossomed - red, yellow, blue, even black. Apart from the macabre, it could have been beautiful. But if it weren’t macabre, Jack wouldn’t be here. He would have been in his bed, by Bella, as he was half an hour ago before he got called in. He would have enjoyed a calm breakfast with his wife, and he would have gone to the office by a reasonable hour. That would have been far more beautiful than this could ever become.

 

When he signed up for the FBI he had expected weird stuff. He had gotten what he had expected and more; but he never though it would come by him this frequently. Why couldn’t he just be assigned a regular homicide for once? Why did he always have to take the full on bizarre ones? Now when Graham was gone there was no reason for him to get these scenes, any other profiler could do what he did. But they seemed to have decided upon him to handle these things, even without Will. But once, just once, a drug deal gone bad or something would have been nice. He could even settle for some weird satanic cult thing, it would at least have motive and not be so damn philosophical.

 

He went up to Zeller and Price, standing right next to the tree.

“What do we got?”  
“He’s literally grafted in place, these are living roots,” Price began to explain, Zeller soon interrupting him:

“They’re varicose veins.”

He began to explain how the veins went through the man’s body. Jack could only stand by, looking at it in disbelief. All murderers he encountered nowadays, not only the ripper, seemed to be surgical geniuses. He wanted something bluntly done, something messy. Something that could be explained with stress, drugs, gangs – anything. How could he explain this? And the damn organs, always those fucking organs.

“The time that he devotes to his work… he really takes pride,” he said.  _No shit,_ was what he thought.

 

Thank God for those gardening classes he and Bella took some time ago. He didn’t enjoy it then, didn’t see the purpose of knowing all the names of those strange flowers that neither he nor she would ever find time to plant in their small backyard of a garden. But things pay of in the strangest of ways. If the ripper (was it the ripper?) took pride in his murder, Jack now took pride in his knowledge. Not only could he name all the flowers, he could also see that they all were poisonous – a special class in the gardening course dedicated to what flowers not to plant for families with children (they had took it and listened in hope). So could Price, who managed to slip that in before he could.

 

He tried to be Will Graham, tried to quickly find a method in the madness, but he didn’t have his gift. Of course, that didn’t mean he was worthless. You have to be fairly good at profiling if you’re the boss of it at the FBI, and he considered himself one of the best; of the ones without that special empathizing gift.

“This is judgment. The ripper believes that his victim was…toxic, somehow. A poisonous man. So damn certain it makes me sick.”

 

He let the forensics crew take the rest; he had to get back to the office. He wouldn’t do any good there when they packed the man with the tree up. He arrived at the office by the time he would have if he hadn’t been called in early, if he had had a nice breakfast and a loving good-bye from his wife. The clock stared at him with that fact. After a quick cup of watery coffee from the machine down the hall he finally sat down at his desk. 39 new e-mails. A lot of them related to the Chesapeake ripper murders, a lot of journalists asking for information, interviews; one even wanted to take a tour of the office. He ignored them all; let them stay there for a little longer. They were used to silent rejection. He skimmed through some office newsletter, as well as a report of all the cases open at the moment. Some of them he only had read, signed and agreed on. Was he becoming to distanced from the rest of the team? He feared he was, but couldn’t figure out a way to stop that from happening. He had to catch the ripper, at all costs.

 

His forth coffee was taken at yet another office meeting, something about a case he knew far to little about. He wished he would know everything about it. It was something mundane – a hit and run gone terribly wrong. This was such a case he had hopes for out on the parking lot with the tree-man. The two young agents taking care of it searched for his support; not because they actually needed it though they didn’t know it themselves. He could see that they were fully competent to handle the case, but they needed the psychological support, a mental OK, from him. Every year he gained more respect for how important the mindset was to people, not only the physical state. He granted his approval of their work, even smiled at them at a point. They were nervous, without reason to be so. He knew that after the meeting they would have new confidence, and he would probably get the solved file in a week or two. Yet he didn’t feel any satisfaction from any of it.

 

All day he had the bad feeling of loosing touch and falling in to that bizarre world he was in without ever a possibility to escape it. The ugly clock went slowly by his desk as processed conversations, meetings, e-mails. He had no interest in his job today - it all was a gray blur.

 

Oh well, at least he could look forward to a drink at Hannibal’s this evening.

 


End file.
